There’s a prompt that’s been going around a while, about the first astronauts on Mars finding a dead human body, or a skeleton, and some words written. It came to mind the other day, but I couldn’t decide what words I’d put in. If only I knew, I thought, which my readers would like the most.

So I got the idea of making a poll, and then the choose-your-own-adventure followed from there. Below, I’ve collected the whole story, as it was told over three days, with the popular vote-winning option always at the top of the list, and the others struck through. It was hard to write, and it reads a bit disjointed, but it’s not bad for a first effort, I think. I had as much fun as I had stress over it (since I had no plan, and only wrote a new part in response to the concluded vote until the tenth or so episode).

Many thanks to the thousands of readers who voted and kept reading.

The first astronauts on Mars found a dead body in a cave, and four words written in blood:

“What now?” said the dead mouse.
“You’re dead,” said Death. “Do what you like.”
“I’ll be a dragon!”
“Nice,” said the cat. “I am the knight.”

The mouse swelled up to a huge dragon. “You are dead!”
“I’ve died a few times,” the cat knight said. “Doesn’t mean I’m dead.”
She charged.

The cat stormed through the house, turned, batted something only she could see, dodged invisible blows, jumped up on the chair, and struck.

“Aw, she’s playing,” her humans said. “Look at her go.”
Shortly, the dragon was defeated, and the cat knight went to reassure her humans.

“You are safe now,” she purred.
Then she went to have a nap, to be rested in case more ghost monsters attacked.

Initially just meant to be a single-tweet story, but I was asked if the cat was dead too, so apparently what was obvious to me needed to be spelled out. If a cat has died once, it can see the dead. Which explains what cats are doing when they are fighting something invisible.